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design thinking is generally considered the ability to combine empathy for the context of a problem, creativity in the generation of insights and solutions, and rationality to analyze and fit solutions to the context.

Design thinking was the topic assigned to me by my professor so I started searching for it. Turns out, this ‘design thinking’ has been part of our everyday lives that was just turned into somewhat a form of management practice. Design per se is defined as a plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, or other object before it is built or made. BEFORE it is built or made. So, design serves as a blueprint and somehow a plan on how an object will be produced. It has the job to suit the consumer’s or whose ever user will it land on to satisfy its needs. It customizes the product to best represent the need of the consumer. Combining design and thinking produces another ability that is now a form of solution-based, or solution-focused thinking that starts with the goal or what is meant to be achieved instead of starting with a certain problem.

The innovation that comes from design thinking is that it is not looking for problems as what most management practices do but it redefines the way a service or product is done or made in the most efficient and creative way it can possibly think of. Companies are asking them to create ideas that better meet consumers’ needs and desires. Through direct observation and empathy for what the people need, like and dislike about the way particular products are made comes innovation in the context of design thinking. Empathy is a main component of design thinking for what made it unique is the fact that it is human-centered. Then, creativity makes its way through by not just thinking outside the box but merely thinking in another perspective and that is to think that there is no box at all. In this way, operations management or the process that is required to get a service or product done is best partnered with this fundamental yet creative and complex thinking.

Now, let me tell you about operations management. Why am I talking about design thinking when operations management is the protagonist here? well you will be quite surprised but design thinking and operations management are like brothers from another mother! Applying them both simultaneously takes operation management in a whole new dimension. Whilst Operations Management focuses on overseeing, designing, and controlling the process of production and redesigning business operations in the production of goods or services, design thinking may knock the door of operations before actually operating for something. design thinking can alter and customize the process of operations management to maximize the production while lessening the time it needs to produce.

“Thinking like a designer can transform the way you develop products, services, processes – and even strategy”

This best represent why design thinking and operations management may come together. To design the materials, the process and the product itself to a much better, efficient, and customized to best fit the people in need must always be the goal of operations management.